


First Impressions - A Prelude

by blessedharlot



Series: Mad Around Here [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Family, F/M, Family Feels, First Time Parents, Found Family, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Love at First Sight, Orphans, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Natasha Romanov, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14030778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: Bucky came back from their quarters with a bundle in his hand. When he got close, Nat realized he’d taken one of their blankets and ripped and knotted a piece of it into a rough shape of a doll.He squatted down to be a bit shorter than the girl, and handed her the doll.“It’s a raggedy friend,” he said. “Kinda like us.”Without her expression changing, she took it in both hands and curled up smaller in Nat’s arms.-=-=-=-Once upon a time in the future, there was a whole second generation of Avengers... working together to manage their parents’ shadows, adopt dogs, not get framed for murder, and to maybe occasionally save the world.But first, one of them has to meet her mom and dad.





	First Impressions - A Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> For this AU, imagine the MCU Team Cap gang aged a few years down the line, with some comics characters enjoyably folded in.
> 
> This prelude sets the stage for one of our key team members: Rikki Barnes!

Bucky laid eyes on her first. 

The hull of the orbiting facility contained high volumes of alien metals that threw their ship’s sensors for a loop. So, while they were fairly certain there was one single life form left on the half-destroyed craft, they couldn’t pinpoint precisely where it was. Couldn’t tell age, size, or species either.

So Bucky carefully planted his magnetic boots in the piles of wreckage, hoping nothing dangerous got dislodged. Hoping nothing tore his space suit on the rubble. Hoping he didn’t startle anything he couldn’t outgun or outrun.

Even in sections of the wreckage that hadn’t collapsed or exploded, environmental controls had gone haywire. So, gravity and controlled environments came and went as he traveled. Sometimes his visor sweat warm, condensed water; other times ice crystals blurred his vision. 

The last three life forms Bucky had seen this week - besides Natasha - were an angry green amphibious alien, the same size as Bucky; an angry technicolor bear-like alien, significantly larger than Bucky; and an angry alien resembling a blue scorpion, roughly the size of the Chrysler building.

With all of them now assuaged or dispatched, he held out hope that the next life form he met was less angry. They were probably low on life support supplies, and Bucky could offer them some...maybe even transport to somewhere safe.  _ Surely _ , he thought,  _ that would lead to an amicable conversation? _

The planet they orbited was uninhabited, and the wreckage they had scanned so far hadn’t explained who made this place, nor what they used it for. Though Bucky had the sick, familiar feeling in his gut as he explored, like this was the kind of place to house the sort of asset he used to be.

Bucky turned a corner through a breached passage in the orbiter. And past the warped wreckage closest to him stood burnt walls still intact, and visible shells of damaged storage cabinets. 

Ahead of him was an intact air seal.

It was a less damaged portion of the ship… which could house the sole survivor. 

“Is that door intact?” Natasha asked through his intercom. She must have his camera turned on over at the ship.

“Looks like,” Bucky replied. He tried his side of the airlock, and it opened.

He stepped through and closed the door behind him. And though he didn’t need it, with the suit on, he enjoyed the emotionally comforting sounds of repressurization into a stable breathable environment. 

He turned around to face an entrypoint with significant security on it.

“Want help with the code?” Nat asked as she took in what he saw.

“Nah, I’ll handle it manually.”

Bucky punched the plate beside the door, crumpling the controls. Then he hauled the door open.

She was so small. She was so far from Bucky, many beds away from him on the other end of a large med bay. Yet somehow Bucky felt her eyes were the first thing he took in across the whole room. Wide set, gracefully angular, and deep, rich brown, he instantly fell into them, head over heels.

It took him several seconds to get his bearings back, and to realize her legs were strapped to a bed. 

That was when the rage threatened to take him.

He strode through the hastily abandoned medical lab as gently as he could and willed his voice and demeanor to be soft.

“Sweetheart, what’s your name?” he asked.

The young girl stared at him, from behind a curtain of black cornsilk hair. It wasn’t quite unkempt, but Bucky recognized the careless cut of it after so many years of receiving the same. The child had been kept alive, but not cared for.

“My name’s Bucky,” he said. He held her unblinking gaze, feeling full of things he wanted to tell her.

She looked unafraid, but very tired. He guessed she was around four years old, by earth standards.

He slowly reached for the closer strap, and the girl didn’t budge. He unfastened it, then he reached for the other.

She laid a hand on his suit, near his flesh shoulder. 

What Bucky could only describe as a molten electrical charge surged out of her hand, coursing through his body. He felt his bionic arm close off and protect itself, and heard himself scream, as his convulsion lurched him away from her hand and he slid to the floor.

Bucky braced himself there on his hands and knees, catching his breath, as his intercom crackled with Nat’s concern.

“James, what the hell happened? James?”

“There’s… I’m okay,” he gasped and struggled for breath. “There’s a kid.”

“What?” Natasha was understandably confused. Bucky wasn’t sure he was too far ahead of her. “Did you say ‘kid’? Your readings went wild!” she said. “What happened?”

"The labs here... they have a child that looks... human. But she has some power, transmitting energy through touch.” He stood up and shook his head clear. 

“Oh, James,” Natasha said. 

She knew already, they both did. The child was part of someone’s experiments.

Bucky turned to check on her, and she sat still in the same place, watching him curiously.

  
  
  


Nat rushed to meet them. 

Bucky has remained in radio contact as he carried the child over to their ship, and Nat listened as they started the journey calmly. But then the girl got frantic, powering herself up with whatever it was she could produce, and throwing it haphazardly around the room. The sounds of blasts and screeching metal and major destruction filled the comms, but Bucky wouldn’t give details. He said he had it under control. 

But Nat honestly had no idea what she would find when she caught up with them.

The last thing she’d done before leaving the bridge was to start the computer searching for everything it could find about the child in the databases of the abandoned facility. Could any family be alive? Here or somewhere else? Could they discover anything about her powers?

Nat had told him to meet her in the medical bay, so he and the girl could both be thoroughly checked out. It occurred to her that they should cross-reference the girls’ scans with any information they had on Wanda, and other similarly powered individuals. Perhaps this girl was enhanced in a similar way.

She worried if Bucky was hurt, and what it might have done to him, emotionally, to see a child strapped down in a lab. He wouldn’t be happy. 

She couldn’t say she was unaffected, either.

Nat rushed around the last corner, threw open the med bay door, and stopped in her tracks. 

She felt her creased brow soften and lift in surprise. 

She took in the whole scene at once, strangely startling in its deep, serene resemblance to a religious icon. The stars twinkled behind Bucky and the girl, the nearest planet’s moons arcing across the sky and surrounding them with a halo of pink, orange and purple spheres. Bucky sat on a med bay bed - seemingly unharmed - arched back as though rocking an infant. His flesh arm patting rhythmically on its charge underneath his hand. 

The child had a round face and tawny skin, with faint freckles across the bridge of her nose. She also appeared to be asleep, limp, and drooling, face pressed to Bucky’s bionic arm.

Bucky looked up at Nat, smiling.

“She really likes my arm,” he said.

Nat breathed it all in, and her heart skipped a beat.

 

  
  
The girl sat quietly on Nat’s lap, gazing thoughtfully all around the room. Once the disruption of travel was done, and she was safely on their ship, she appeared calmer. Nat found herself stroking her hair and smiling wordlessly at her. The girl seemed confused, but not upset, by the physical touch.

Bucky came back from their quarters with a bundle in his hand. When he got close, Nat realized he’d taken one of their blankets and ripped and knotted a piece of it into a rough shape of a doll.

He squatted down to be a bit shorter than the girl, and handed her the doll. 

“It’s a raggedy friend,” he said. “Kinda like us.”

Without her expression changing, she took it in both hands and curled up smaller in Nat’s arms.

Nat embraced her tighter, and met Bucky’s gaze.

“Anything from the computer?” Bucky asked.

Nat shook her head. “Not much. Only that they didn’t give her this power. They may be evil, but they weren’t competent enough to change her themselves. She might have this naturally.”

“Med scan show anything interesting?” he asked.

Nat shook her head again. “Healthy human child, nothing out of the ordinary. And zero information on family in the other ship’s database. There’s a tiny bit of intel on the traders they bought her from. We can try and track down from there. But I’m not hopeful we’ll find anything.”

“She could be Russian, for all we know,” Bucky said as he watched her. “Some Far East blood.”

Nat arched a eyebrow, a ridiculous hope springing into her chest so powerfully that she couldn’t hold back. Rather than claim it directly, she shifted it into a joke. “You got any superpowered girlfriends from the far reaches of Siberia you wanna tell me about?” she asked.

Bucky grinned happily, and they watched her fall asleep in Natasha’s arms.

 

 

  
Before long, they had learned that when the girl got frantic, his arm helped. It soothed. She had learned quickly too, and it seemed that when she felt out of control, or frightened, she’d come touch him.

She hadn’t sent any more surges through either of them yet. Bucky wasn’t sure the girl was actually controlling it consciously. More likely that her emotions drove the power, and the girl was simply relatively calm in their presence, so far. But he’d take their luck either way.

Bucky was frightened to think what the upper limits of the girl’s power could be, or how early they might have manifested, if she had them already. He worried what became of her family in the first place, and how her powers might have been involved. 

And he worried terribly over the girl’s future.

They cut short their larger mission to bring her to Earth, and government agencies messaged and hailed them all the way back. They all insisted on their own proper channels, proper procedures. There were appropriate places for the girl to go, they said.

Nat informed them all diplomatically that they were still investigating the girl’s family. It was too soon to make other plans. When Bucky fielded messages, he had less patience, and explained that anyone who made any demands of the child, and wouldn’t just leave them the hell alone while they did their job, would be risking their lives. 

But eventually, they arrived home. And no leads on her family had arisen.

A SHIELD agent visited the day they arrived home, while the girl was still adjusting; the agent left in a hurry after Bucky made his point that no one else was qualified to manage her. Another agent of some other agency somewhere arrived -- Bucky had long since tuned out most of the bureaucratic mess of acronyms. This one also insisted the girl belonged with them. Nat took a turn making clear to him that she would tolerate no further disruptions in the child’s life. 

But Bucky knew. They were only shooing away flies one at a time.  Eventually someone wouldn’t take no for an answer. Someone else would call, show up. 

Bucky and Nat weren’t her parents. No one had legal claim to her, so all the pertinent agencies would all be after her, vying for the chance to warehouse her again. Study her. Use her.

That night, Nat and Bucky talked, long into the morning hours. They paced and thought and worried. They examined the damage her brief tantrum had done -- to furniture, luckily, and not either one of them. And when the girl was restless and fussy, they took turns rocking her in their arms.

Nat seemed certain things would work out for the girl. But Bucky just wasn't sure how.

  
  
  


The next morning, as Bucky slept in with the girl, Nat decided to make some phone calls. Two SHIELD agents were at the door within the hour, paperwork in hand. Steve Rogers and Clint Barton happened to be in town, and followed shortly after.

Just as they had arrived, Nat heard the upstairs bathroom door open, and the quiet song that had accompanied teeth and hair brushing floated gently down into the living room. Bucky brought the girl downstairs as Steve and Clint entered the living room.

Bucky saw the gathered crowd and instinctively drew his arms tighter around her.

“James,” Nat said, with an emotional smile. “If we want this, we need to make it happen. Now.”

Bucky looked at Nat, and slowly absorbed her words.

Nat continued. “SHIELD can keep the proper paperwork in hand and-”

“Aren't we still off the grid?” Bucky asked.

“Technically, yes,” Steve said. “But SHIELD can leak redacted papers to other organizations, making it clear that no one else has a claim on the girl. No one else… but you.”

Bucky looked wary. Terrified, even.

Nat came close to him and whispered past the girl’s just-combed hair.

"James, can you imagine ever letting go of her?” Nat asked him.

Bucky slowly shook his head.

“Me neither. So let’s leave a paper trail, to bind her to us. Adoption papers.”

Bucky took a deep breath, and swallowed.

“What’s her name?” Clint asked.

“Stop rushing her,” Bucky said, irritated. “She hasn’t told us her name yet.” 

“She has to have a legal name for the adoption, Buck,” Steve said, beaming.

Nat reached across the girl, and brushed some of Bucky’s hair behind his ear.  She nodded at him, and he set his jaw.

“Rebecca Natalianovna Barnes,” Bucky said, as he looked at little Rikki fidgeting in his arms.

Rikki gave an affirmative yelp and face-planted into his shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned for more of this Rikki... and her cousins and coworkers!


End file.
